According to a new study: Chewing each mouthful of food for longer duration might help to reduce weight.

Volunteers who chewed each mouthful 40 times ate 12 % less food than those chewed just 15 times.

It is thought that chewing for a long time checks over eating as the brain is given more time to receive signals from the stomach that it is full. It also lowers the level of Ghrelin, a hormaone that controls hunger.

Chewing breaks food down from large particles into smaller particles that are more easily digested and better absorbed.

Saliva too has digestive enzymes which help in digesting food. More the time saliva has on the food the better it is and less stress on the intestines.

Teeth created from Stem Cells

Scientists at Tokyo University of Sciences Japan, have created Teeth from Stem cells. Teeth complete with connective fibers and bones have been created using mouse stem cells and successfully transplanted them into mice. This is a great progress in stem cell research and would lead to further innovations.The entire tooth units, which were inserted into lower jaws of mice, attached successfully with jawbones and the rats were able to chew normally.

Elixir of Youth possible !

Scientists have discovered a new drug which they believe could reverse the effects of premature ageing and extend human life.

In an experiment, a team of U.S. scientists took skin cells from children with Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome, a rare genetic condition in which babies rapidly grow old and look many times older than their age and die young but looking old. The disease causes levels of a mutant protein called progerin to build up inside every cell of the body, producing defects and rapidly ageing the cells.

The cells from these children were made healthy again by using a drug Rapamycin. This drug is used to suppress the immune system in organ transplants. It was created from a bacterium found in the soil on Easter Island -which lies more than 2,000 miles off Chile. This drug is also known as “forever young drug“.

In the latest research, the scientists, who included eminent genetic scientist Dr Francis Collins and collaborators from Harvard Medical School, studied the effect of the drug on skin cells from three children with HGPS.Treating them with the drug flushed the poisonous protein out of the cells and reversed the defects, effectively making them healthy again. The cells also lived longer.

According to co-authors of the study:

It is known that during ageing, our cells accumulate byproducts of normal cell function, said Dimitri Krainc, one of the co-authors of the study.

Our body’s ability to remove this debris declines with ageing and it is thought that even a small activation of this `debris removal’ system would extend the health and life-span of our cells and organs.

A team led by Katherine High at the Children Hospital of Philadelphia, a procedure known as ‘Genome Editing’ was performed. What they did is that they treated a life-threatening blood disease by repairing flaws in the genetic code of a living animal. It is first such feat achieved.

They treated mice that were bred to develop Haemophilia B, an inherited bleeding disorder in which the body’s ability to form blood clot is defective. About one in 30,000 boys are born with haemophilia B which in its most severe form may require frequent blood transfusions of Blood clotting factors to prevent spontaneous hemorrhages.

The work raised prospect of powerful new therapies that can target and repair the genetic defects behind a wide range of human diseases that cannot be treated by modern medicines.This new technique called genome editing holds particular promise for a diseases that run in families and are caused by faults in the genes that prevent healthy working of the immune system, bone marrow and liver.In the experimental mice who were suffering from Haemophilia B, the defect in the bleeding disorder was reversed to near normal without causing any apparent side effects.

Medical Topics

Women who actually follow all of the standard health advice - eat sensibly, don't smoke, get some exercise, keep the weight down, have an occasional drink ,can reduce their chance of heart disease an astonishing 82 percent, according to a study from the landmark Nurses' Health Study, conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health.

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